


memento mori

by aestheticisms (R_Vienna)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, M/M, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:05:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Vienna/pseuds/aestheticisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Remember your mortality." </p><p>If only he was so lucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	memento mori

**memento mori**

(remember your mortality) 

if only he was so lucky.

* * *

There he is.

Jaime Reyes screaming, Jaime Reyes throwing slabs of concrete into the ocean, Jaime Reyes no longer Jaime Reyes. The Blue Beetle is catatonic underneath the Reach’s influence, finally on mode, as desired by the harbingers of the end of the human race.

His golden eyes search the earth, ravage and consume. His laughter echos in the lonely pier.

Bart can only stare. His lips are poisoned with wine blood, and Bart can’t wash away the toxic stain. He rubs and rubs at pale flesh, but the color spreads, it trickles down his chin and onto his neck and then his chest and it gushes from his mouth, in uneven spurts of horrible bile and venom.

And he can’t do anything. He is trapped in his skin, legs frozen, about to break into a sprint.  
Then he wakes up.

*

Bart wakes up to a red sky—burning, reducing the atmosphere into mere atoms. He always wakes up before the brunet can do anything, before he can wrap his fingers against the red of his neck, and _squeeze_.

The nightmares should’ve ended loops ago. It was absurd at this point. The scratchy, the familiar feel of bedsheets are a comfort, Bart sinks into white pillows and into wool blankets. He presses his fingers against his lips, and feels nothing. Only scab ridden gooseflesh. Scars from skirmishes and acne. Nothing visceral.

He rubs at his eyes, and pulls himself out of the semiconscious state he seemed to be living in lately. He pulls on a shirt and fumbles around for some clean pants, tripping over sneakers and two day old teriyaki bowls. What a waste, he mumbles, pushing his way out of his bedroom. The bathroom is his first stop, with the scratched mirror and the faulty fluorescent bulbs and the little sombrero wearing bobblehead on the sink, next to the toothbrushes and mouthwash. Bart flicks the overly ecstatic caricature and the figure bobbles away, head bobbing to some rhythm inaudible to meta-gened speedsters.

The redhead resists the urge to send the doll flying to a sad, toilet watery doom.

He washes his face, nicks his skin when unobservant of his bit fingernails, and runs his fingers through his hair. Still unruly, still slicked back in post-sleep fashion, Bart can’t help but grimace. His gaze is greener than the norm, boring into the aluminum and steel that reflected a ravaged boy of thirteen.

He was thirteen, right? He checks his pulse for irregularities, rubs circles in his temples, and yeah, he was thirteen in name alone, he’s lived more years than any asshole on this goddamn planet.

Maybe except Jaime.

He was always an exception, Bart stuffs his toothbrush into his mouth, and brushes away at plaque and cavity deposits, and whatever else was hiding inside the alcoves of his teeth. He didn’t really care. Brush, brush, brush, each bristle filled unoccupied gaps, and left his mouth cold and minty. He spits into the sink, and wipes away any foamy remnants.

His hair is still a mess, spikes sticking up at awkward angles, Bart tries not to impale himself with a hairbrush this morning and decides to skip the hair thing. He’s out the door in a flash—har dee har har—and Grandpa Allen doesn’t say a word, he’s drinking coffee and sifting through the morning news for things he cares about, but Bart knows what’s on that headline and what gruesome reality it entails, he’s known about it for loops now, and wonders why people bother with the news anymore.  
Barry nods and acknowledges the boy’s existence before flipping to the comics. Bart flies out the door.  
He tries not to take it too personally. Bart is a guest in the older Allen’s home, and he was a guest that had a tendency to disappear for long periods of time before coming back covered in bruises, or never coming back at all because whoops guess who accidentally caused armageddon?

Outside in the open air, Bart let himself breathe. The air tastes different, it tastes like something new: possibility.  
The air tastes like ashes and smoke, and this is promising. He is familiar with the environment, it’s not saccharine sweet, the taste does not suffocate and choke him, he is at ease. Fists clenched, he runs, runs faster than ever, he is a blur of red and green and blue, only acting on _impulse_.

He can’t crack jokes like Grandpa Allen. He’s not sincere enough. The words come out of his mouth forced, and it takes minutes for him to perfect the perfect shit-eating grin he’s known for.

His shadow stretches past the horizon, the trip from Central City to El Paso is a blip in the radar.

Outside the El Paso Bus Depot, he shakes, shivers and shudders, stuffing hands into jacket pockets, into jacket pockets that do not belong to him. The color blue was never his thing, but this is his most precious belonging. Bart can’t remember if he snitched it two timelines ago, or last week, but the cotton smells like home, and like the cinnamon sugar spice of of a brown haired boy’s cologne. It’s an irritation, but a sentimental attachment, and Bart can’t seem to get rid of it.

The bus driver yells for the next ride out to Houston. Bart waves him down, and jogs briskly toward the stout conductor. He hands the annoyed man a ticket, crumpled up and coffee stained.

“You runnin’ away, son?” his english is thick with spanish flair, and Bart can’t help but snort.

“Where do i even start?” his retort is curt, dry. Bart boards the bus without a second glance. He pushes his way to the back, hopping and sliding over and past other passengers, their grumbles and groans the only thing he hears, until he reaches the last seat and looks up from the floor and to the back window and his lips contort into the perfect smile.

“Hey, _ese_ , what is happening?” there’s a choked laugher in his greeting, and Jaime responds with a chuckle, gold eyes lit with amusement.

“Hola, _hermano_ , como andas? everything good?” it takes a second for the boy to revert to english, Bart thinks it’s hilarious because Jaime’s face scrunches up and then relaxes—kind of like an off/on switch.

Jaime Reyes was made up of live wires, and faulty switches. One bad shock could ruin everything.

“Yeah, everything’s cool, _amigo_.” Bart slaughters the spanish language like it was his obligation. “The question is,” he raises his brows and places a knuckle under his chin, “why are we on a bus to Houston?”

Jaime laughs, and rubs the back of his neck with his left hand, his right clutches the bus seat with a vicelike grip. Bart pretends not to notice.

“I just wanted to get away for a bit, you know?” there’s more that he’s not saying. It hangs in the atmosphere, pulls at the smog and air. Jaime lets his hand drops, his fingers splay awkwardly on his lap, nails bitten to the nubs, cuticles still blood-stained.  
Bart tries to ignore the obvious signs of past anxiety attacks, but his fingers make their way to the other boy’s hand, and twine with his. Their callouses rub against each other, Jaime’s from fist fights, and Bart’s from training, and it’s serendipity.

And it’s painful.

“Houston’s like, forever away dude. why don’t we just, fly there or something?” Bart’s mouth is close to the brunet’s ear, his breath tickles and taunts, and Jaime fidgets in his seat, trying not to sigh. He stares straight ahead, while the auburn haired boy rubs circles on the older boy’s palm.

“It wouldn’t be the same, hermano.” Jaime’s words are cigarette smoke, and Bart breathes it in. “We’re trying to find an escape.”

Silence.

He kisses him, quietly, desperately, bruised hands clutching the fabric of Jaime’s grey hoodie.  
Jaime’s hands touch his back, and maybe this time he can get it right, the loop can end here, can end now, if he just says the right word, he can break the spell—

“Te _quiero_ , estupido.”

Bart breathes.

*

The sky is blue that night. Houston is glittering, golden, it’s incandescent, and makes his eyes hurt. Jaime holds his hand, and leads him through alleyways and cinemas and restaurants, but they’re sixteen and thirteen year olds on the run and people give them dirty looks and crude words, but Bart feels so so alive.

The week after the Reach launches its attack and takes Jaime.

For the first time in a long time he’s left alone. The watch tower falls out of orbit and crash lands on earth.

(He wishes the crash killed him.)

*

He tries again. This time, it’s a Thursday, and everything is going wrong wrong wrong. Grandpa Allen doesn’t greet him on his way out because he’s dead. The bus depot to Houston is blackened ashes. Jaime is pretty chummy with the Reach’s ambassador, going so far to revealing his identity in front of, say, hundreds of story-hungry reporters, and Bart, well, he’s running faster than he thought possible, turning corners, cutting edges, fighting his way through the masses because he doesn’t have time he is all limbs and hands and he needs to get to the watchtower before it’s too late.

Before it’s too late to do what?, the boy scoffs because the world is ending and all he can do is run. Jaime—no, the Blue Beetle, the clarification allows for distance, and allows for emotionless responses and protocol, he cannot think about the boy underneath the metal armour, because that would lose his cool, that would lose everything, more than everything he’s already lost, he needs to keep calm and breathe—the Blue Beetle is leading the attack on humankind, and his followers burn cities into dust. They pollute the air with poison, children clasp their throats on the streets, and Bart—no, Impulse, he’s Impulse and he’s saving the world, the entire god forsaken world—tries his best, his goddamn best, pushes civilians to safety, throws them into crevices, anywhere far away from the infested oxygen.

His lungs can only take so much before they crash in on themselves, little muscles screaming and spasming and twitching and then done.

His death this time around is humiliating.

*

Somewhere in between the conscious and real, Bart dreams. He dreams of a future paved with gold and silver, homes lined with platinum roses, somewhere he can grow old and free. Maybe a future where he stays in 2016, and lives with the Allens and goes to school and saves cats in trees, or something. He dreams of normalcy, holding hands with a boy he loves, running track, breaking every record ever set at Gotham Academy, Bart Allen would be the absolute best.

When the shrill screech of alarm clocks and cellphones shake him from his slumber, the boy is relieved. He goes to Mount Justice, and finds the place packed with activity, Nightwing gives him the slightest of nods, and Bumblebee ruffles his hair, despite his incessant pleas to do otherwise. He admires her optimism, strength. Qualities he so obviously lacked. He bids good morning to everyone he meets, and knocks Robin off his seat, laughing when the black haired teen yells from the bear rug underneath the blue sofa in the assigned living room. Bart takes a seat in the once occupied cushion, and starts chatting up the pretty blonde Robin seemed so interested in. Her eyes were blue, brighter than the gulf of mexico. She spoke softly, and wore purple, and was peculiar—Bart likes her.

Then Jaime runs in, short brown hair windswept and ridiculous, shirt off, the Khaji Da making a ruckus with its little arms, and Bart sprints to him, at his beck and call.

He would do anything for him, he realizes.

Anything.

*

(He is a self-fulfilling prophecy, Bart screams, as Jaime smashes a crystal key on his head.)

*

Bart wakes up in a one windowed room, lit by a broken television and whatever radiation made residence outside.  
He pushes himself off his bed, palms at his neck, the inhibitor collar still in place, mocking and overbearing and there, and he tries not to laugh, cry, laugh, because Bart Allen knows better than anyone else that the power of love never saves the day. True love’s kiss doesn’t wake up genocidal princes. Knights die before saving their charges.

He’s staring at a red sky.

“It’s showtime.” he tells the reflection in the broken glass.

The sun bleeds.

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first ever yj fic so  
> im sorry gomen thanks for reading though


End file.
